As the normal everyday user merrily uses their selection of social networking platforms (mine are twitter, facebook, linkedin, delicious) there’s a constant battle between them to steal users, and improve their own offering with this ultimate goal in mind. This is great for us as it leads to improved sites, more useful web utilities, and a better all round experience. Working in an agency, we’re occasionally asked to start new online communities. It’s not easy.

To be truly useful you need people to sign up and often the main reason people sign up is because ‘everyone I know is using it’. Of course that is more the case for Facebook where the very personal style of networking (with photos, relationship updates, sending gifts, etc.) meant you ‘needed’ to use it to effectively stay in touch with people you already knew. As someone on Twitter (a great source of learning) put it: Facebook’s for people you know, Twitter’s for people you want to know. In effect, once a site like Facebook grabs the lion’s share of ‘your’ friends there’s no reason for many to leave.

Add in the fact many users don’t demand the most sophisticated functionality, there’s even more inertia for users to switch platform. Other platforms like social bookmarking may be less tribal, or more individual, so as long as I find something better or cheaper, I can move knowing I’m not leaving my entire social life behind! A social networking platform must be useful. It has to do one thing well to survive. Linkedin helps people connect professionally without polluting the space with holiday photos or ‘fun’ videos. Flickr is all about photos. Ok, they do video now but can anyone outmuscle YouTube with the headstart they have. The sheer volume of videos they have up there mean for videos that’s often the first port-of-call. As a direct result, they get more videos. It’s almost like a vicious circle. Finding a niche is always a good starting point.

Platforms like Ning do this well. Letting people build their own networks around specific interests. However, I think it’s still all about numbers. The more people you can get signed up, the greater the pressure on the rest not to get left behind.